Linear delay difference equations with variable coefficients and constant delays are considered. By the use of an appropriate solution of the so called generalized characteristic equation, an asymptotic result is obtained and a stability criterion is established.1. Introduction. In [12], the authors presented an asymptotic result for the solutions of first order linear delay differential equations with variable coefficients and constant delays, by utilizing the so called generalized characteristic equation. This result is motivated by a very interesting asymptotic criterion due to Driver [3] (see, also, Arino and Pituk [1]) for the solutions of linear differential systems with small delays as well as by the results given in the papers by Driver [2], Driver, Sasser and Slater [5], Graef and Qian [6], Kordonis, Niyianni and Philos [7], Philos [10], and Philos and Purnaras [11]. It is the subject of this paper to present the discrete analogues of the results in [12]. The results obtained here are wider than those in [12]; this is due to the fact that the solutions of delay differential equations are not necessarily differentiable on the initial intervals.Some results on the asymptotic behavior, the nonoscillation and the stability have been obtained by Kordonis, Philos and Purnaras [9] for linear delay difference equations with periodic coefficients having a common period and constant delays that are multiples of this period, and by Kordonis and Philos [8] for linear autonomous neutral delay difference equations. Some related asymptotic results for linear delay difference equations can be found in the papers by Driver, Ladas and Vlahos [4], and Pituk [13], [14].Our work in this paper is motivated by the analogous work in [12] for delay differential equations as well as by the results in [9] for delay difference equations and in [8] for neutral delay difference equations.In the present paper, we consider linear delay difference equations with variable coefficients and constant delays. We utilize the so called generalized characteristic equation to obtain an asymptotic result and also a stability criterion.