Vodaphone wondered too...
In The Lost Phone Experiment, Vodaphone planted 100 phones throughout the Netherlands, and tracked their
fortunes via a web site.
They came up with some interesting data about
how many are returned, where they traveled to, what they were used for, and by
who. Open the site up using Chrome and hit "Translate" so you can read it in English. (more)
Spoiler Alert: About 30% were returned to their owners.