  It is known that in phase covariant quantum cloning the equatorial states on
the Bloch sphere can be cloned with a fidelity higher than the optimal bound
established for universal quantum cloning. We generalize this concept to
include other states on the Bloch sphere with a definite $z$ component of spin.
It is shown that once we know the $z$ component, we can always clone a state
with a fidelity higher than the universal value and that of equatorial states.
We also make a detailed study of the entanglement properties of the output
copies and show that the equatorial states are the only states which give rise
to separable density matrix for the outputs.
