Registry operator of the .asia top-level domain DotAsia Organisation announced on Wednesday the landrush phase for the .asia top level domain has ended, drawing nearly a half a million applications.

The .asia registrar opened its pre-registration for the TLD on February 20. There were 473,633 applications received during the landrush period, and 505,838 applications in total when including domains registered during the sunrise phase as well as .Asia pioneer domains.

As expected, ‘buy.asia’ and ’sex.asia’ fetched the highest number of applications. Meanwhile, domain registrar AsiaDNS led the way with the most applications received during the landrush, followed by Dotalliance, Communigal Communications (galcomm.asia ), Go Daddy and Key-Systems.

“The results exceeded our expectations,” says Edmon Chung, CEO of DotAsia. “We are very pleased with the enthusiastic demand for the ‘.Asia’ domain. This is a testament to the global interest in the thriving Asia Internet marketplace, and the investment appeal for the most prestigious cyber real-estate in Asia.”

With the domain representing 73 countries across the Asia/Pacific region and a geographical area that covers more than 60 percent of the world’s population, there may be potential problems concerning intellectual property rights, says domain registrar Netnames.

The .asia tld officially launches on March 26.