For nearly all businesses, more scale means wider profit margins and, therefore, profit growth that outpaces revenue growth. Credit the fact that at least some parts of any company's operating costs eventually plateau. And in some cases, even variable costs directly linked to manufacturing a product or providing a service eventually start flattening out.
It's a premise that's increasingly important to current and prospective shareholders of Remitly Global (RELY +1.32%). The cross-border payments middleman continues to grow its customer count. But it's growing its total revenue at an even faster pace, resulting in now-explosive growth of its bottom line.
Here's what you need to know.
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Remitly's tech disrupts an industry that's ripe for disruption
Remitly helps consumers and companies send money to and from one country to another. It's obviously not impossible to do it another way. It is, however, surprisingly complicated and expensive. Remitly's app makes it easier and more affordable. That's why the company's customer base grew 20% year over year to 9.6 million in Q1 2026, then grew another 20% in Q2.
It's not just adding active customers, though. It's adding bigger customers, as well as more active ones. Although the total amount of money it handled in Q2 only grew 27% following Q1's growth pace of 37%, that's still huge, profit-widening progress for this company that's now at the proverbial tipping point. Following Q1's EBITDA growth of 74%, Q2's EBITDA improved at a faster clip of 79% year over year, when pretax net income improved from nearly nothing to $64.6 million on a little less than $500 million in revenue.
RELY Revenue (Quarterly) data by YCharts
This is still just the beginning, however. An outlook from Straits Research suggests the worldwide cross-border remittance business is poised to grow at an average annual pace of 15.6% through 2034, with most of that growth materializing in the latter half of this time frame. For Remitly's part of this tailwind, Monness Crespi Hardt's senior equity research analyst, Gus Galá, noted just last month, "We view Remitly as a structural market winner poised to capture 10% to 15%+ of consumer transactions by 2030, driven by a product superiority vs. legacy incumbents and a business model built around digital scale."
Following its second-quarter report, the argument that this company offers a superior app that facilitates cost-effective scale isn't in question. This digital scalability means even more for Remitly's bottom line than it does its top line. That's a big reason why the company has now topped analysts' earnings estimates for 10 consecutive quarters.
NASDAQ: RELY
Key Data Points
Lots of long-term potential for the volatility-tolerant
The market finally appears to be catching on. After a forgettable 2025 following a similarly forgettable prior three years, the stock's up more than 60% year-to-date, in step with revenue growth, which is driving even more dramatic profit growth.
Yet, there's still a fair amount of near-term upside left to tap. The analyst community's 12-month consensus target of $32.05 is nearly 40% above this stock's present price.
Just know that -- given its total growth potential as well as the likelihood that it will remain volatile -- most interested investors will want to treat RELY as a longer-term growth holding meant to be held through its inevitable ups and downs in the meantime.
