Stability in functional differential equations established using fixed point theory

In this paper we consider a nonlinear scalar delay differential equation with variable delays and give some new conditions for the boundedness and stability by means of Krasnoselskii’s fixed point theory. A stability theorem with a necessary and sufficient condition is proved. The results in [T.A. Burton, Stability by fixed point theory or Liapunov’s theory: A comparison, Fixed Point Theory 4 (2003) 15–32; T.A. Burton, T. Furumochi, Asymptotic behavior of solutions of functional differential equations by fixed point theorems, Dynamic Systems and Applications 11 (2002) 499–519; B. Zhang, Fixed points and stability in differential equations with variable delays, Nonlinear Analysis 63 (2005) e233–e242] are improved and generalized. Some examples are given to illustrate our theory.