OBJECTIVES: With 182 million smokers living in India, cigarette smoking is a serious public health problem associated with severe morbidities and significant economic burden. As willingness to quit smoking has been found to be associated with smoking cessation; the main objective of the study was to examine the predictors of willingness to quit smoking in a cohort of adults in India. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted among adults aged ≥18 years in metropolitan cities in India.  Participants completed self-reported questionnaire about socio-demographic variables, smoking status, smoking status of peers, history of past quit attempts, addiction level and attitudes towards smoking. Study cohort consisted of individuals who smoked at least one cigarette in the past 30 days. Outcome variable was willingness to quit smoking. Variables that were found significant (p<0.05) in bivariate analyses were included in multivariate logistic regression models to determine predictors of willingness to quit smoking. RESULTS: Out of 761 participants, 469 respondents (61.6 %) were smokers and 253 (54%) of smokers were willing to quit smoking.  Regression showed that higher willingness to quit smoking was associated with group of age 40-49 years (OR:2.41, 95%CI: 1.19 - 4.90), religion Muslim (OR:0.46, 95%CI: 0.25 - 0.83) or Christian ( OR: 0.41, 95%CI: 0.22 - 0.76), close friend (OR:2.23, 95%CI: 1.40 - 3.57) and siblings (OR:3.06, 95%CI: 1.95 - 4.78) being non-smoker , higher number of smoking friends (OR:1.85, 95%CI: 1.05-3.24) and previously tried to quit smoking 3 times  (OR:2.30, 95% CI: 1.36 - 3.87) or more than 3 times (OR:22.89, 95%CI: 5.27 - 99.32). All reported values are statistically significant (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Our study identified significant predictors of willingness to quit smoking among a cohort of adults in India. Intervention strategies should be developed considering targeted programs to address opportunities for individuals willing to quit smoking.