As Amazon.com Inc. and Netflix Inc. look to build up in India amid a global expansion, they are following two diverging scripts.

On trips to Mumbai this year, Amazon Studios chief Roy Price sipped tea with Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan, visited the mansion of the country’s heartthrob Shah Rukh Khan and watched “Bollywood” musical numbers on set, as he scouted for locally appealing programming for Amazon’s forthcoming video service.

Though Netflix made its debut in India nearly 10 months ago, its executives have been decidedly less visible. That is because Netflix makes content-buying decisions out of Los Angeles even for regional shows, to ensure they have global appeal. The deal for its new Indian original series, based on the internationally acclaimed Mumbai crime novel “Sacred Games,” was sealed out of Los Angeles with Indian producer Phantom Films.

The contrasting approaches in India highlight fundamental differences in how the streaming giants are pursuing international growth as the U.S. market gradually matures.

Netflix, which has expanded into some 190 countries following a near-global launch in January, doesn’t believe in a physical presence in every market. It says it can use its trove of viewer data to buy programming with multinational appeal, so that it doesn’t have to spend heavily on local content in every single country.