The British government has been working with the world's major phone manufacturers to crack down on mobile phone theft, the British Home Office announced Monday.

The government has held a series of meetings with leaders in the mobile phone manufacturing industry, including Apple and Samsung, to discuss what more can be done to tackle mobile phone theft, the Home Office said.

Latest data show there were 742,000 victims of mobile phone theft in England and Wales in the year 2012/13, with the 16 to 24-year-olds most vulnerable to the theft offences.

"I have challenged the industry to do more to make such thefts unattractive, for example by making it easier to immobilize stolen devices and I am pleased to see that we are now making progress," British Minister of State for Crime Prevention Norman Baker said Monday.

On Monday, Britain also launched a new online advice service to help people protect their mobile phones from thieves, winning the support of major phone manufacturers Apple, Blackberry, LG, Samsung, Sony, Nokia and Windows Phones, the Home Office said.

The service encourages the public to make more use of their phone's security features, such as tracking, wiping data from, locking stolen handsets, and so on.

The British Home Office said the police and the industry have already been working together to block stolen phones within 48 hours by stopping them being reused in this country and making them "less valuable." Endi

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