People still steal smartphones, despite them being locked down with thumb and face scanners along with being traceable. It seems to be a hard market to kill.
The thing which really reduced iPhone thefts in the U.S. wasn’t biometrics: it was the carriers begrudgingly cooperating on activation locks. Not being able to get cellular connectivity really took the value out of it since someone couldn’t just pay a disinterested retail store employee to activate a suspiciously cheap phone.