My iPhone was stolen in Kenya. I watched the thief take my iPhone to multiple used iPhone resellers via Find My iPhone, trying to sell my Activation locked iPhone to whatever shop that would accept it.
There are anecdotal stories of thieves just dropping a snatched phone when they see it's an iPhone.
It requires very specific skills to dismantle it to resell-able parts - and even those are hard because the components are linked and can't be sold separately.
I am also happy that the thief does not get much benefit for their crime.
The thief may not have known which phone manufacturer I had before they blindly reached into my pocket. If all phone manufactures had device locks, maybe less people would steal phones.
Yes, many studies were already done on this topic. For example, in the six months after Activation Lock was introduced on iPhones, thefts in San Francisco dropped 38%, compared to the 6 months prior.
https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/1...
It requires very specific skills to dismantle it to resell-able parts - and even those are hard because the components are linked and can't be sold separately.