SECOND LIFE, July 7 (Reuters) - Second Life hit an all-time high in hours spent by avatars in-world but shed more premium accounts in June, according to new statistics released by Linden Lab on Tuesday.

Total hours climbed to 33.9 million, Second Life’s highest to date.

But continuing a trend, a shrinking core of power users are using Second Life. Linden lost 718 premium accounts — users who pay a monthly fee to Linden Lab in exchange for privileges such as land ownership rights on the mainland — during the month. June’s drop to 87,867 premiums is the sixth straight month Linden has lost paying customers.

But Linden has successfully grown Second Life’s total land mass to record levels, suggesting that despite the drop in premium accounts demand for land remains steady. Linden earns the majority of its revenue from monthly charges to land-owners called “tier,” not from premium account dues.

Total user-to-user transactions in June stood at L$7.9 billion (about US$29 million), Second Life’s strongest month since the gambling ban was instituted last summer. In June of 2007, the last month before the ban, L$9.7 billion (about US$36 million) of currency circulated throughout Second Life’s economy.