Smartphones, laptops and equipment for chipmaking are among items exempt from China tariffs under new guidance from the government

Apple Inc. got "the best news possible" overnight, according to an analyst, as the Trump administration exempted smartphones and other consumer electronics products from tariffs.

Shares of Apple $(AAPL)$ and other technology companies had been weighed down by worries about Trump's steep tariffs. In Apple's case, given its heavy manufacturing footprint in China, investors feared the company would either need to raise prices on its products or sacrifice margins by holding prices steady. Apple shares had lost 11% between Trump's tariff announcement on April 2 and Friday's close.

This is a familiar course for Apple, which got a break from tariffs in Trump's first administration as well.

"The U.S. tech industry has a loud voice and despite initial strong pushback against exemptions within the White House the reality of the situation was finally recognized," Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives wrote Saturday.

The new information from U.S. Customs and Border Protection mentions several product codes for items exempt from the April 2 tariffs. These include smartphones, laptops, integrated circuits, transistors, semiconductor storage devices and machines for making semiconductors.

Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon highlighted earlier this week that Nvidia Corp. $(NVDA)$ lists the classification codes for its various products. Many correspond now to items being exempted. For instance, Rasgon said in his Monday note that "GPU form factors (also including gaming)" fall under the 8473.30 code, and that's one of the exempt categories in Friday's bulletin from the government.

The guidance seems to be positive for other chip and server companies as well.

Companies and analysts in the coming days will further assess the exemptions, according to Ives, but he thinks this weekend's development "takes less pressure off the market."

Large technology companies, he added, had essentially "no options/choices" in a scenario where their goods were subject to the heavy tariffs, since their supply chains are so reliant on Asia.